Harper Lee vividly captures the social climate of the 1930s South in her novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. To begin to understand this time of racial separation, you will embark on a WebQuest. Follow the directions below and complete the activities that correspond with each acti

1. Go to hinghamschools.com, then click on High School, then Library to get to the LMC homepage. Navigate to Class Research and click on Segregation. This will bring you to your WebQuest.

Harper Lee's ChildhoodShe grew up in the 1930s in a rural southern Alabama town.Her father, Amasa Lee, is an attorney who served in the state legislature in Alabama.Her older brother and young neighbor (Truman Capote) are playmates.Harper Lee is an avid reader as a child.She is six years old when the Scottsboro trials are widely covered in national, state and local newspapers.

Scout Finch's ChildhoodShe grew up in the 1930s in a rural southern Alabama town.Her father, Atticus Finch, is an attorney who served in the state legislature in Alabama.Her older brother (Jem) and young neighbor (Dill) are playmates.Scout reads before she enters school and reads the Mobile Register newspaper in first grade.She is six years old when the trial of Tom Robinson takes place.

Using the material below, complete the chart that accompanies this sheet, indicating five similarities between the Scottsboro Trials and Tom Robinson’s trial, a fictional case that occurs in To Kill a Mockingbird.

from "Chicago Public Library: One Book, One Chicago - Harper Lee

Scottsboro Trials

On March 25, 1931, a freight train was stopped in Paint Rock, a small town in Alabama. Nine young African American men who had been riding the rails from Tennessee to Alabama were arrested. Two white women, one underage, accused the men of raping them while on the train.

Within a month, one man was found guilty and sentenced to death. A series of sensational trials followed based on the testimony of the older woman, a known prostitute. The prostitute was attempting to avoid prosecution under the Mann Act, which prohibited taking a minor across state lines for immoral purposes, like prostitution.

Although none of the men were executed, a number of them remained on death row for many years. The last defendant was released in 1950.

There are several striking parallels between Tom Robinson's trial in To Kill a Mockingbird and the Scottsboro trials:

The Scottsboro TrialsTook place in the 1930sTook place in northern AlabamaBegan with a charge of rape made by white women against African American men The poor white status of accusers was a critical issueA central figure was a heroic judge, James E. Horton, a member of the Alabama Bar who overturned a guilty jury verdict against African American men.This judge went against public sentiment in trying to protect the rights of the African American defendants.The first juries failed to include any African Americans, a situation which caused the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the guilty verdict.The jury ignored evidence; for example, that the women suffered no injuries.Attitudes about Southern women and poor whites complicated the trial.Tom Robinson's TrialOccurs in the 1930s Takes place in southern Alabama Begins with a charge of rape made by a white woman against an African American manThe poor white status of Mayella is a critical issueA central figure is Atticus, lawyer, legislator and member of the Alabama Bar, who defends an African American man.Atticus arouses anger in the community in trying to defend Tom Robinson.The verdict is rendered by a jury of poor white residents of Old Sarum.The jury ignores evidence, for example, that Tom has a useless left arm.Attitudes about Southern women and poor whites complicate the trial.

5.. Next, read the chart below from Chicago Public Library- One Book: Civil Rights Era for historical context of the book's publication in the Civil Rights Era.

To Kill a Mockingbird in the Civil Rights Era: A Chronology

1954

In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, the decision widely regarded as having sparked the modern civil rights era, the Supreme Court rules deliberate public school segregation illegal, effectively over turning “separate but equal” doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson.

1955

Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African American from Chicago, is beaten, shot and lynched by whites after allegedly whistling at a white woman in a store in Mississippi.

In Alabama, Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat to a white man, precipitating the Montgomery bus boycott, led by Martin Luther King, Jr.

1956

Autherine Lucy receives a letter granting permission to enroll at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. She is the first African American admitted to the state school.

In January 1956, following the successful Montgomery bus boycott, King's home is bombed by local segregationists.

Motions are filed in U.S. District Court calling for an end to bus segregation.

Violence erupts on the campus of the University of Alabama and in the streets of Tuscaloosa, continuing for three days.

Autherine Lucy is forced to flee the University of Alabama campus; the University's Board of Trustees bars her from campus.

Autherine Lucy ordered by the courts to be re-admitted to the University of Alabama, only to be expelled by Board of Trustees.

Montgomery bus boycott ends in victory December 21, after the city announces it will comply with a November Supreme Court ruling declaring segregation on buses illegal.

African Americans board the first desegregated buses in Montgomery.

1957

In September, federal troops are sent to Little Rock, Arkansas, to protect nine African American students at Central High School from white mobs trying to block the school’s integration and to enforce court-ordered desegregation of schools.

1959

Alaska and Hawaii are admitted as states. Hawaii, the 50th state, elects Hiram Fong (of Chinese ancestry) and Daniel Inouye (of Japanese ancestry) to represent them in Congress, the first two Asian Americans to serve in that body.

1960

In Greensboro, N.C., the first lunch counter sit-in by four African American college students inspires more throughout the South.

To Kill a Mockingbird is published.

1961

James Meredith becomes the first African American student admitted to the University of Mississippi.

Freedom Riders begin arriving in the deep South to test new Interstate Commerce Commission regulations and court orders barring segregation in interstate transportation. Violence necessitates the deployment of federal troops.

Violence erupts at the University of Mississippi over integration.

1962

The United Farm Workers Union, under the leadership of Cesar Chavez, organizes to win bargaining power for Mexican American agricultural workers.

The film, To Kill a Mockingbird, is released.

1963

Dogs and power hoses are directed at peaceful demonstrators in Birmingham, Alabama.

Civil rights leader Medgar W. Evers is murdered at his home in Jackson, Mississippi.

Over a quarter of a million people participate in the March on Washington on August 28, 1963, and hear Martin Luther King, Jr., deliver his "I Have a Dream" speech.

A Birmingham church is bombed on September 15, killing four African American girls attending Sunday school: Denise McNair, age 11, and Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Adie Mae Collins, all 14 years old.

1964

Civil rights workers James Chaney, Mickey Schwerner and Andrew Goodman are kidnapped and murdered near Philadelphia, Mississippi, by white law enforcement officials and members of the Ku Klux Klan.

On July 2, President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

1965

March for Voting Rights is held in Selma, Alabama.

The Voting Rights Act passes and is signed into law on August 6, effectively ending literacy tests and a host of other obstacles used to disenfranchise African Americans and other minorities.

PBS: Lynching in Alabama? to read about the social climate of the United States during the time that To Kill a Mockingbird was first published.

When you have completed both charts and have read about the Civil Rights era:

Click on History of Jim Crow. According to this webpage. What are 3 restrictions for African Americans? Note them on the bottom of your chart.

Go to Danger, Violence and Exploitation . Read the content on the page. View the webpage slideshow: Fear and Struggle. What was life like for African Americans? List 3 adjectives –each with a supporting detail, on the bottom of your chart.

7. Upon viewing these pictures, prepare a 2-page response to one picture of your choice according to the following guidelines. a. Vividly describe the picture in one paragraph. b. In one paragraph, surmise the perception that white people would have of black people after seeing this picture. Defend your assertion. c. In one paragraph, surmise the perception that black people would have of their own race after seeing this picture.